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 his wits, even as Cloud King lived by his matchless speed and indomitable courage, was at that very moment feasting upon a fat grouse—or pheasant, as Dan called it—which good luck and his own quick brain had procured for him. Dan grumbled impatiently at the thought and frowned darkly as he reviewed the little tragedy in the wheat field—a tragedy which was a sharp reminder that the two buccaneers of Devilhead were still waging destructive war on the game that he cherished as his own.

"I'll get them two vagabones," he muttered, "if it takes all winter. That's all they is to it. The confounded murderous varmints! Slaughterin' a pheasant right before my eyes!"

For a moment he was tempted to renew then and there his crusade against the marauders of Devilhead, climbing the peak and lying in ambush near the summit in the hope of getting a shot at the fox or the falcon when they returned to their homes in the great cliff just under the brow of the mountain. He had tried that method before, however, and found it fruitless, and he quickly abandoned the idea. Presently he dismissed the problem from his mind for the moment and focused his thoughts once more upon the object which had led him to take the trail that morning. On a wooded shoulder sloping down from Devilhead Peak a big wild gobbler had taken up his abode. It was in search of this gobbler